Staying In On A Saturday Night
By A.H. Ellay
Lying in bed at 3:30 on a Saturday, you think to yourself, maybe I won’t go out tonight. Maybe you won’t make more bad decisions, maybe you’ll walk to the used bookstore and buy Invisible Monsters and reread it. Maybe you’ll have soup for dinner, from a can. Maybe the party will be boring, with everyone just standing around and drinking beers that don’t get them drunk, maybe the music will be just a little too loud so it takes extra effort to make conversation, you’ll have to force yourself to be heard, more so than usual. Maybe you’ll stay in and watch a movie, you never have time for movies lately. Maybe you’ll order pizza because fuck it, you’ve been craving pizza all week. Maybe you’ll throw some beer in the fridge and have a night to yourself, relaxing, beer and pizza and a movie, that sounds nice. Maybe you’ll get a little drunk from the beer and want someone to be drunk with, maybe you’ll start texting people. Maybe people are already out, partying, socializing, so they ignore you or tell you to come find them but you’re in your PJ’s and burping pizza so you ignore them. Maybe you crack open your laptop and another beer and waste time, maybe you spend three hours playing spider solitaire and never end up watching that movie. Maybe you realize it’s 2AM and you’re not that tired but decide to go to bed because you make responsible decisions like that, responsible decisions like staying in tonight. Maybe you lie awake and feel lonely, you wonder what that boy from work is doing right now, probably out and having fun but why do people go out to meet other people because no one makes real friends during parties. Maybe you should have gone out. Maybe you would have had a good time, seeing friends you’ve been blowing off lately, catching up, maybe some light flirting would be fun, even if it’s meaningless. Maybe you do this every Saturday, convincing yourself it’d be better to stay in when it’s not better, it’s just safer and easier and maybe you sleep in on Sunday not because you’re tired but because you don’t want to go out into the world, you don’t want life, you don’t want people anymore. Maybe you lie awake and hear the trucks outside and think stop. Maybe you think so much about life that you forget to interact with it, you are meta-living, you are not living, you are lying in bed on a Saturday afternoon doing nothing at all.